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To the AKB's who have bought the idea that 15 years of CL football is some form of great achievement, ask yourself a very simple question... Why is it?

Take the word 'competition' for example. It means to compete for a prize. In 15 years we've made a grand total of 1 final. We haven't come remotely close to winning it prior or since. That is poor, very poor. Especially seeing how DiMatteo has won it in what, 5 games? With an average Chelsea team it has to be said as well. What does that say about out illustrious leaders ability these days and his lack of tactical prowess against the big guns in Europe? Or the premiership for that matter.

We are sold this fallacy that making 3rd or 4th place is some form of miraculous achievement, well I'm sorry but it f.ucking well isn't. Gooners have become content with mediocrity and have swallowed the bullsh*t this club have offered on the menu.

Then there's the revenue that the CL brings the club every year. The almighty £20m + that vanishes into thin air every summer. The absolute must that we make top 4 every season to play in this 'competition' and why? Year in year out we do not invest in the players to actually compete in the tournament it's apparently imperative we play in. All whilst the owners pockets get bigger and bigger.

There are so many things about how the club is being run that p*ss me off these days, but this one is right up there. I'm f*cking sick of it.

And I'll finish by saying those who were cheering on Chelsea on Saturday are the ones who have accepted our mediocrity with open arms and haven't even realised it. Barely finishing ahead of Spurs in the league and them not making the competition we have no chance of winning either, is something to celebrate these days apparently. Celebrating Chelsea winning the competition our club lives for, in order to make us look ever so slightly less s.hit than the mob down the road.

Something is seriously wrong here.

Albert Einstein once said: "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

Let me play Devil's advocate, ah well says Wenger Di Matteo won it with only 5 games, but 3rd is won over 38 games.

- until Wenger moves on, they'll always be the also-rans in the major competitions. A club in elite purgatory. Always good enough to make it to the big race, never fast or smart enough to push over the finish line in first place. That's all about the manager. Until he changes, Arsenal fans will continue to celebrate glorious failure.

They worked horrendously against Bayern, unfortunately my grandma could shoot better than Gomez, Ribery and co. The tactics were wrong, which is illustrated by the fact that once Chelsea brought on proper players, took of Bertrand and actually went for the game, they scored and got some momentum. Muller scoring was the best thing that could have happened to them.

The CL is worthwhile because it's difficult, ok so we haven't won it, fair enough I guess. I don't know why you'd be angry about being in it, though.

And before Radio comes storming into this thread with a fecking essay I will just say that ya, things could probably change for the better. I think almost every club in the world could say the same, but there's no question we could do better.

BootyDaddyTo the AKB's who have bought the idea that 15 years of CL football is some form of great achievement, ask yourself a very simple question... Why is it?
Take the word 'competition' for example. It means to compete for a prize. In 15 years we've made a grand total of 1 final. We haven't come remotely close to winning it prior or since. That is poor, very poor. Especially seeing how DiMatteo has won it in what, 5 games? With an average Chelsea team it has to be said as well. What does that say about out illustrious leaders ability these days and his lack of tactical prowess against the big guns in Europe? Or the premiership for that matter.

We are sold this fallacy that making 3rd or 4th place is some form of miraculous achievement, well I'm sorry but it f.ucking well isn't. Gooners have become content with mediocrity and have swallowed the bullsh*t this club have offered on the menu.

Then there's the revenue that the CL brings the club every year. The almighty £20m + that vanishes into thin air every summer. The absolute must that we make top 4 every season to play in this 'competition' and why? Year in year out we do not invest in the players to actually compete in the tournament it's apparently imperative we play in. All whilst the owners pockets get bigger and bigger.

There are so many things about how the club is being run that p*ss me off these days, but this one is right up there. I'm f*cking sick of it.

And I'll finish by saying those who were cheering on Chelsea on Saturday are the ones who have accepted our mediocrity with open arms and haven't even realised it. Barely finishing ahead of Spurs in the league and them not making the competition we have no chance of winning either, is something to celebrate these days apparently. Celebrating Chelsea winning the competition our club lives for, in order to make us look ever so slightly less s.hit than the mob down the road.

Something is seriously wrong here.

Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeease..Arsene Wenger is CEO of Arsenal FC.

What do you expect him to do to please Kroenke and still earn 6-mil a year..plus a guarantted "job for life" if he will sign on another contract extension?

You wnat your Arsenal FC back?
By all means, do like what ManU fans did when they revolted against Glazer Fmailya dn left ManU to form FC United.

You too can do it...leave Arsenal FC and with like-minded Arsenal fans...form Wolwich United as well...

Like ferguson sold hsi souls to Glazer Fmaily..Arsene Wenger had sold hsi soul to Kroneke as well.

So it's just better to do nothing at all because that's the only option you are able to see Merl?

There are plenty of other options if we aren't just too fricking lazy to try them

But really if we care enough we have other options and to pretend otherwise calls into question how much we really care.

You say you're a traditional anarchist as defined originally in the 10th century but you show yourself top be more like the college kids with the silly string and Dave Mathews Tickets than someone with a real sincere philosophical mesasage or desire to see it that message reach anyone.

Or is the true anarchist someone who tries to make giving up because that is easier sound morally courageous and superior.

People like you who don't have the stomach for the battle are why the club walks over us as surely as those people who try to pretend Arsenal now is the same proper club it was in the 1930s.

It's a real shame because you could offer a lot to any effort and you choose not to.

But you know what really bothers me. Once again the Board of Englishmen gets a free pass here. THEY sold everyone's souls to Stan Kroenke and if anything THEY paid Arsene Wenger to make thar possible for them. Yes those proper Arsenal Men and women loved this club so much that the first chance they had tpo make some big money they took it and they even weakened the side to make even more money, and yet one more time somehow they escape our wrath. How about that?

BootyDaddyWe are sold this fallacy that making 3rd or 4th place is some form of miraculous achievement, well I'm sorry but it f.ucking well isn't. Gooners have become content with mediocrity and have swallowed the bullsh*t this club have offered on the menu.

Once again, a f.uckin great revolutionary statement that helps fuel the festering feeling of discontent amoungst Arsenal fans.

Wake up the other half, Darwin would be ashamed of you, your winding back the clock to your Neanderthals anchestry. Oh, all except Eduardo, PK, Jack-is-the-spoof and Fockstaar... I dont know where the f.uck they evolved from... f.uckin White Hart Lane maybe LOL!

BD I agree with much of what you say but I don't think it's solely down to Mr. Wenger at all. And I think we can't just assume that because that is easier to do because if we are wrong we have handed the club the excuse to persist with its failed strategies just with a new man out front.

I can just hear Wenger's response to an angry Arsenal fan regarding Chelsea winning the CL:
"Qualifying for the CL fifteen years straight is like winning a trophy."

We can see how small a club we've become by idiotic supporters being happier about finishing above Spuds than angrier at Chelsea winning the CL. In effect, we have become to Chelsea what Spuds are to us. And in the space of five years. Wenger should be so proud of himself.

claiming being 15 years in the CL is sort of saying your team are at a level high enough to do well.

Everybody was bragging 3-5 this season and claim we have a better team than Chelsea but when Chelsea win something, all of a sudden they have a better squad with better players and should be winning it.

So truthfully tell me where Arsenal should be in the league and what they should be winning?

karsene16claiming being 15 years in the CL is sort of saying your team are at a level high enough to do well.
Everybody was bragging 3-5 this season and claim we have a better team than Chelsea but when Chelsea win something, all of a sudden they have a better squad with better players and should be winning it.

So truthfully tell me where Arsenal should be in the league and what they should be winning?

Its not about where they should be in the league, and what they should be winning. Its that whereas other clubs undergo peaks and troughs, spend to get out of a crisis or aim for next level etc. we appear to be being managed very carefully to remain in the same place, minimum outlay for maxiumum profit. As you would manage a shop. We demonstrate no improvement or ambition to improve what has been a decent position during some seasons (for example xmas before last, top of the league and only needed a few purchases). All management is about continuous improvement. So Wenger should at least managed to have cracked the domestic cups by now, and given everyone a few decent days out, even if the CL or league is beyond our money.

Anyway, I am of the view now that if you want to run one of the largest football clubs in world football you have to put the money in. It isnt just about Chelsea and Man Citys new money. Liverpool, Spurs, Newcastle, Man Utd, they all spend outside their immediate returns in order to progress. So do a lot of foreign clubs. If you want to run a big club, you have to step up to the plate. Otherwise, let someone else have a go Kroenke.

Stan Kroenke has a history and present come to that of setting up his sporting invesments to do just that,enough to make money without big investment and compete ish.
We have to do enough to stay attractive to customers(fans) without spending a lot and therefore maximising profit.

Still siding a bit with Stan, he just took over, BS has been happening for years. We lost two players who were going anyway but Wenger's said he had no restrictions to buy, just that he left it too late through his own naivety. I'll give Stan another summer, but what can you do if Wenger says the squad is good enough or doesn't want players bought for him.

If it turns out that Wengers brief is to win things, he has been offered any kind of significant money to do so, but persists with not spending it, then he needs to be on his bike. But I dont think Wenger is that daft and I dont think therefore this will turn out to be the case.

Think its fair to say that Wenger is the one who doesn't want to spend as he thinks the market is overinflated and players are way overvalued

He loves to point out that there isn't much movement like before and the global economy is going to make it worse

He's the only manager that speaks like that and if thats not enough, just look at his record

He makes the CL every year and finished third, so he doesn't think the team needs a compete overhaul...but he should be more aware that the effect Arteta, Per and Yossi had on the team, think he'll look for a little more experience this time

although I think he's had more than enough time to figure it out and should be sacked

Im past caring who it is and what the problem is. Ive paid me money I want it sorted. dont care if Kroenke and Wenger have to rob the Bank of England.

There was a very significant thread on the online gooner the other day, article was roughly along these lines , it focused on how low the club has sunk and we now take pleasure in other peoples failures instead of our own successes (like spurs fans, in other words) anyway what was significant is that if that thread had gone up 2 years or even a year ago, then half the posts underneath would have been slating the bloke 'go down the lane' and all the rest of it. Except that it was about the 60th post before anyone did that. Everybody else was in full agreement.

the tide has turned, not sure why. I think even the most virulent AKB is bored of the sustainability argument, the fincancial fair play argument, becasue it represents something boring. People wont stand for more seasons like the one just gone. I sense a great change in peoples views, and I am not even sure why really, i think it has collectively dawned on people that the future for us is very very dull indeed.

And yet the business people whose job is to run the Club purely as just another business as you say are 100% behind him nad have been the last several years. Odd how that works out and odder still how some of those people's immediate predecessors whose purely corporate job was precisely the same pocketed 400 million pounds for themselves from his policies for which they should have been sacking the manager for in your view.

Curious, no? Or maybe not so much. Because you almost sounds like a - dareisay it - Arsenal supporter suggesting the manager should be sacked rather than just another executive who view all of us customers and Arsenal FC as a big supermarket wer can shop in like any other. Gets confusing don't it?

RadioFreeArsenalOdd how that works out and odder still how some of those people's immediate predecessors whose purely corporate job was precisely the samepocketed 400 million pounds for themselves from his policies for which they should have been sacking the manager for in your view.

Sorry, but you've never proved this so you shouldn't say it so flippant. You told me they raised about 100mil. 100mil is 4 decent players, 400mil is 16.

First off Karsene we don't need any proof apparently to unconditionally trust the Board as certainly you haven't presented any real proof on behalf of your conclusions.

I find the fact that you assume that they have acted properly and honourably invbery inste=ance and decision with far less proof to support that(in fact almost always your proof is simply that they say so) than I can and have offered to suggest they pursued policies solely to make increased personal profits such a drag. It really is like protecting the Board's image as gentlememen of honouer and disticntion and higer cleass is more important to supports like you then the footbll team is.

Oh and BTW you laid your case and when I answered it you basically said nothing in repsonse - funny how that was you presented a whole bunch of points(though none butressed with any real evidence behind them oddly enough, anmd when some solid arguments against you points we presented you had no answer..

I think the last thing you ought to be doing is advising people on what they should and shouldn't say especially given that you haven't even bothered to prove anything because you're happier believing if the Board said it must be true.

Second off my comments about their" purely corprorate role" were actually aimed ar Rockstaar who continually says arsenal have always been and are no different a business than a a bottled-water company and our supporting Arsenal is no different than buying that bottled water. My apologies if that caused any confusion. Sarcasm often does that but again that wasn't aimed at or inteneded for anyone else but Rocky Top so my apologies there.

I find the fact that you assume they are acting improper without solid evidence and going on and on and on about it - Just creepy.

Oh and BTW I did respond, to your response but it was you who said nothing we don't know already. I gave you a few more questions to answer but you were busy arguing with someone else about another subject.

The last thing I would want to do is advice people on what to say but when they have a gimmick which just looks blatantly to the eye as false you have to.

What is you with how some of you think you can just say anything and get away with it?

Go Back to the I Don't Care who leaves - thread I answered your questions and then two posts followed neieher of which were yours so either you posted themsomewhere else and if you can tell me where I'll be more than happy to answer them just as I did in that thread .

How about this you show me a Club document from the club's official business records that shows Arsene Wenger has made all the decisions regarding the football team and its personnel and none of these decisions were driven by outside interest such as the Board wishing to raise the share price to enrich itself further.

And since we know you can't do that for the same reasons I can't explain why it is okay to conclude the Board have behaved solely with Arsenal's best interests at heart without proof and slander to question that conclusion with genuine proof (Proof strong enough appaerently to make you demand that club document from me to dismiss it) ?

So I want you to produce a club document as you demanded of me confirming what you say is in fact true or I think you owe me an apology and certainly can't be relied on as objective in this discussion

BTW Karsene without such a document since apparently that is your standard foof proof for any claim then you in fact are slandering Arsene Wenger.

In which case you would not only be a slanderer but a hypocrite to accuse anyone else of the same thing based on the same or even more factual evidence than you are able to present in defence of your assertions.

So I eagerly await either those additional question I have not seen you state I avoided answering and that Club document veriftying your claims abiout the Manager being repsonsible for all of these decisions. Both even.

Karsene you're avoiding the point. You accused me of slander because I don't have some document confirming what I said appears with increasing certainty to be what happened yet you haven't produced any documentation supporting any of your claims assigning full blame for our policies to Arsene Wenger.

And you accused me of avoiding answering your questions when in fact I actually answered a series of them and supposed follow-up questions you then asked are not where to be found that I can see. At least not in the thread where had the exchange in question took place So where are the questions I dodged answering then.

Let me guess it's all a @#$%&-take when you realize you can't produce the facts to back the BS eh?

The only one you're fooling is yourself if you are achieving that even.

Absolutely correct Jens and if you pay attention I haven't said anything was proven only that it is increasingly apparent based on the facts we do know,and that the possibility I could in fact be correct as apparently is the case should concern all of us enough to want to make certain that the club has been run properly by those trusted to do so.

None of us know with 100% certainty which view is in fact correct, and that doesn't prove or disprove either one. As I say I would be absolutely delighted to be proven 100% wrong. All that would mean is there would be sort of changes made that would ring this unpleasant run to an end. And whoever we feel is to blame for getting us to here that is what we all want now right - for this frustrating run to end.

But I would note no one has disproven the view is have at all in seven years and most of the proof offered to rebut my concerns is basically blind-faith or unconditional-trust level proof in other words just taking the Club at its word with no other information to confirm that word.

So at this point we should all be concerned about what the truth is not that we know it either way because in fact we don't know it woth 100% certainty and the correct answers really does matter - we do know that with 100% certainty.

Dude there are people on the Arsenal board who are billionaires so over spending will not be a problem for the club. There's a manager who the club trust, a mortgage so steady payments for the Stadium are in place. Everything is how the club wants it - steady, to change anything you'd have to go in there with a gun and force transfers.

No 400 million(still a crazy sum) is going to change anything, Usmanov offered to pay the debt, you think you're trying to get the board to hand back over money to boost the money spent on players and wages, but it won't happen, the steady attitude is in place, they're in there looking at the money waiting for a super recession.

A different attitude starts with the ambition, if we continue to believe 19points from the top is good enough, one point above spuds is good enough. waiting on injuries is good enough, nothing will change.

Do you think anyone wantds the 400 million pounds for the Club or to be spent on the team? Because celarly you're missing the point then.

The whole issue about the 400 million pounds is that a lot of that money was made pursuing projects whose sole purpose really was to dope the share price and lead to the team being drastically weakened in the process. Projects that could have been avoided allowing the Club to still remain more comeptitively successfully while still allowing our Board to still make a very healthy profitt for themselves selling the Club and all that without threatening the Company's financial viability.

In other words the Board got Greedy by pushing for the even higher profits. But we don't want that 400 million (or 300 million if you discount the sales of Mr. Dein's shares) put back into the Company the Club or the team. It would be nice to have of coursebut. It was never in the Company or the Club or the team to begin with.

But just as we wished the Board had not re-distributed and maniuplated funds from the self-sutaining busness model that traditionally whent back into the football to make much of that 400 million for themselves then, we would simply rather have the Club use more of the resources it does have under the existing self-sustaining business model as opposed to further manipulating those funds to make the current investors even more money for themselves now.

As to your other points I really don't get the first one about the billionaires. Are you suggesting they are going to put money into the Company club and team or not?

I agree with your last point fully. The question again is where does this lack of ambition originate from and why. I think there is more genuine evidence and quite a bit more that suggests it is not the manager's office, though the manager shares in the blame for not standing up on behalf of us and his team and himself even if he was well-compensated not to do so.

But I don't think we need to go to the extremes you suggest over transfers at all. Again whatever their long-term financial ambitions are or oyr opprojected role in them we hold an even more powerful hammer than usual precisely because you cant march to Jerusalem if you get turned back at Paris. The long term is nothing more that a series of short terms strung together and thus short term failure means long term failure in most instances or at the very signifcantly reduuced long term success.

So whatever Stan Kroenke five year ten year or twenty years plan we have several chances to mess it up if we wich before he gets there if we wish to, and knowing this he will lack the stoamch to risk losing everything he wants long-term just to save a bit more short term now if he has to make that choice.

Of course if he doesn't have to make that choice because we lack the stomach to stand up for our club he won't make it and will continue to walk over us.

But we have much more power and don't need extreme literal or metaphroical measures to apply that power effectively.

Nice try Rock Snail. As I pointed out above the Board made about 320 million between them selling to Stan eand David Dein made 80-90 million selling to Alisher Usmanov. Not take out your calculators and add....

Of course knowing you you could be thinking I said they stole 400 million pounds from the Club which I think detailed pretty clearly above is not the case either that they did that or was suggesting they did. They redistributed and manipulated the Club's funds and the self-sutaining model by which those funds were re-invested to make much of that money.

But why let what I actually say get in the way of what is more comforting for you to believe, eh?

So I am sure you have some actual numbers to support that insistance eh Rocksinyourhead?

Like say these -

Dan Fiszman - App 162 million GBP+

Lady Bracwell - App 120 million GBP

David Dein - App 75 million GBP

Carr Family - App 17 Million GBP

Peter Hill-Wood - App 5 Million GBP

So let's see that is oh approximately 380 million pounds oh my god 20 million pounds off(btw overstated David Dein and Carr family 's profits by about 19 million GBP)

Oh gee my numbers were with 95% of accuracy, but being off that little makes them all no good no matter what. How weak.

Okay they made 380 million pounds by redistributing and manipluate the funds of the self-sustanming business Moel, that's all. Oh that's okay then and pure custodianship. But idf they had made that other 20 million well I would have been mad then for sure. LOLOLOLOLOL.

Btw that also makes the pursuit of re-developing Highbury even more profitable for the Board but no more profitable or less risky had things gone wrong for the club.

Some what's that word f.uckery eh? If anything you made my case stronger? You couldn't make it up.

Nyce try. I incorrectly staed a number because of my own lazy math and i acknowegded which Is more i suspect than tyou have the idencency to do and typically enough you use my being hionest6 in a way I don't think you have been to doscredit me. What a joke.

All those numbers come from respected English Papers - The Guuardian , The Independent and the telegraph.

I love how somany of you believe anyone who disagrees with you is lying when you're rthe only ones who haven't got the courage to even try to prove what you think is true.

yup, no courage, bad character, discredit, can't take it if someone disagrees with you blah blah blah...same old buzzwords

you know what robot...you would make a great political marketing person..you should really take up politics since you keep repeating the same false information over and over again until even you start believing it

and whats wrong? why are you suddenly typing like Merlion? is it because you have been found out?

Philly - no disrespect but if people wanted to do something they would regardless.

As I have said I am more qualified than all of you together to realize how bring this can be. The problem is you just say it and say it once no one cares but then they complain about the consequences over and over year after year.

You want it to change well stand up and do something instead of just wondering why it doesn't and inventing any excuse to vent over it. Otherwise we're no different than people who complain about government but never bvote and still wonder why nothing changes.

If we don't stand up we deserve all this pain and disappointment. Is it possble that we want it? That soounds ridiculous but so does not standing up then wondering why nothing changes and being angry that it doesn't. What does that accomplish?

Not at all - we're all complaining over and over just about very different things. We all see the problems and we all want them solved.

That is where the devil is in the details. My point is we shouldn't wnat to pretend to solve or to advocate solving the real problems.

I as I have said before I might be wrong, I hope I am wrong, I want to be wrong,and would rather be wrong than right.

The problem is I might not be wrong.Indeed the facts we do know and have access to suggest it is possible and even likely I am right at the very least to a significant extent.

It doesn't matter who is right or wrong. getting these problems solved before they get worse is all that matters. And if the Club will not change the policies whoever creted them or regardless of the reasons causing those problems only supporter advocacy and pressure might achieve that goal.

The problem is if you only advocate for the solution you want to believe and its the wrong solution than we have unwittingly aided and abetted in damaging Arsenal's cause further. And Arsenal's cause not our Board's should come first.Our Board is just now a group of men, and no man is bigger than the Club,no?

Meanwhile for all those slugs happy with a Chelsea winning the CL, their victory has cost us £8,000,000.

really its cost you £8mil...I thought you wouldn't be too concerned about losing money since the world is ending by them winning the CL anyway

sorry to let you in a on a secret, but it hasn't cost you a penny, no seriously nothing, not one penny and life has continued just fine as you witnessed when you opened your mail this morning or turned on your computer and everyone is still here

it hasn't cost Arsenal much either since they have £400 million in the coffers and more importantly, the Spuds will miss out on the CL for another year!

hippogunnerIn effect, we have become to Chelsea what Spuds are to us. And in the space of five years.

End Thread.

And the blind faith in the Board of supporters like you helped make this happen. They couldn't have done it without people whp trusted them unconditionally and let them do it because these uber-loyalists were more afraid of admitting the Board were doing this instead of behaving as their oredecessors historically and traditionally had for a century before then than the conseuqences that would result.

So Congrats Karsene we couldn't have gotten where we are notr could the Board without you.

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